Part 27 - Babat Duag Trail.

Part 27 - Babat Duag Trail.

Length: 4.7 miles out and back.
Elevation Change: 1,180 feet
Difficulty: Moderate to Difficult.
Dogs: Yes, if leashed.

Mexican poppies on the Babat Duag Trail.

Stop number 2 on our trip up the Catalina Highway is Babat Duag Trail. It is pronounced "bob-ott doe-awk", and the name comes from the Tohono O'odam tribe. This historical name for the area, now known as the Catalina Mountains, literally translated to Frog Mountain.

The trail head PARKING is off to the right on the way up Catalina Highway.  The trail head BEGINS across the highway, and about 100 feet up the road. Be careful crossing the street and look to your left for the trail head sign.

Trail head proper for Babat Duag Trail.

January on the Babat Duag Trail means wildflowers...and lots of them. The Mexican Poppies were all over. Several other local species were blooming and the pollinators were everywhere. Really, a beautiful trail in the early Spring.

Flora and fauna.

The beginning part of trail consists of steep climbs through grassy slopes that tends to be more forgiving than the rocky terrain of Soldier Trail below. There are several times where the trail levels off for a bit to give way to vantage points of the land below.

Catalina Highway can be seen winding along the left edge of this picture.

The views of Redington and Tanque Verde Ridge from up here are amazing. 

The end goal of this hike are the seasonal falls in the canyon at the trails terminus. The last ascent on the puts you on the North face of the mountain in this picture. We hiked up the trail on the ridge line below, stopped just short of the 'falls', and turned around to get this picture.

Grasslands near the end of Babat Duag Trail.

This is a picture of the end of trail 'falls'.

I don't know what season this falls has water in it, but it isn't Spring.  We stopped by a trickle of water to eat lunch and get a picture of the ridge we just walked across before heading down.

Allegedly this trail has an un-maintained connection that leads over to the top of Soldiers trail. We hiked uphill from the End of Trail sign, looked for signs of a trail, but did not find any leads. It is pretty steep and a little exposed here, so we didn't push on any further.





Stay tuned for our next adventure in the Catalina's.

Until then, here is a link to our last article:

Part 26 - Soldier Trail.